Tips and Tricks for Effective Twitter Engagement – From Learning the Basics to Becoming an Expert  

Use Twitter, they said. It will be easy, they said. So you created a Twitter account and you are now the proud owner of a Twitter username, sometimes called a Twitter handle, @yourbusiness. But now, you feel like you don’t have enough hours in the day to get a handle on your Twitter feed. All you need to do is master a few simple tricks to create a stronger presence and get more from your Twitter account.

Learning the Basics

If you’re a Twitter novice, you can start by “listening” to the conversations already happening on Twitter. Eavesdrop for a bit. It’s okay. When you see # (called a hashtag) plus a phrase, #CyberMonday for example, that indicates the topic of conversation. You can search for specific conversations to see what other Twitter users are saying about a particular topic by conducting a Twitter search.

Familiarize yourself with the following terms:

• Username: Less commonly referred to as a “handle” this is the name you answer to on Twitter. It will always be written as @username.
• Tweet:  A message of 140 characters or less that you post on Twitter.
• Reply:  A reply is a direct response to a tweet. You can use replies to build relationships with specific Twitter followers.
• Follow: You can “follow” other Twitter users whose tweets are of interest to you. Following industry leaders and engaging them in conversation will help you build your own list of followers.
• Follower: Someone who “follows” your Tweets because they take an interest in what you have to say. Followers might be someone in your industry, a client or potential client, an employee or a friend.
• Retweet: It is called a retweet when you repeat what another Twitter user has said and you give credit to them as the original source.
• Mention: Include @username in your tweet to call that user’s attention to your message. You can also use this tool to ask them a direct question.
• Like: You can “like” a tweet that you see in your feed both to let the person who tweeted it know that you enjoyed the content and to mark it to refer to it later. You can like a tweet by clicking the heart icon (note: it recently changed to a heart icon from a star).

From Novice to Twitter Expert – Building Your Network and Effective Communication

Practice
Did you know you can use Twitter to communicate more effectively with your employees? Practice your new mad tweeting skills on them. Do you need to alert the office that a water main break has the building closed until noon? Create a private employee list and tweet the news to your list to instantly notify all of them at once. You could tweet, “Water main break. Don’t come to work till noon.” In the beginning you might not have the base of followers you desire, but by tweeting regularly and subscribing to lists, you will rapidly get the hand of it.

Create & Subscribe to Lists
Lists are a fabulous, but often underutilized, tool in Twitter. A list is a select group of Twitter users that you create based on their commonalities. To create your staff list, go to your profile, select lists and create a new list. Title your list, then visit your employees’ Twitter profiles and add them to your list. You do not need to follow them to add them to your list.

Why is it important that you do not have to follow someone to add them to your list? Following your competitor in order to keep track of them might be awkward, but by adding them to your list, you can effectively spy on your competition’s tweets without their knowledge.

Subscribing to lists allows you to curate the content you know you want to read and eliminating the necessity of scrolling hundreds, or thousands, of tweets. Create a list of influencers in your industry, your favorite authors, or the best sports writers from newspapers across the country.

Increase Your Visability
Make sure that followers and potential followers can easily recognize you and your business. Update your account page with a visually powerful background and customized appearance that looks professional.  You decorated your office yourself, you can manage to decorate your Twitter page as well. Take a look at Themeleon for ideas to customize your page. Make sure your avatar or photo is clear and represents you and your brand. Introduce yourself with a clear and interesting bio.

Once your account page accurately reflects your business, tweet daily to engage your followers. Are you remodeling? Keep them informed of the process. Did you read an interesting stat on female investors? Tweet it.

Schedule Your Tweets
If you feel like you only have time to tweet at 7:00 pm on Wednesday nights when you are waiting for your kids at karate class, then schedule all your tweets for the week then. There are plenty of free sites such as Hootsuite, Buffer and SproutSocial through which you can schedule a week’s worth of tweets so that your audience still knows you love them even during crazy-busy times at the office.

Boost Your Followers
Follow more people so you increase your odds that people will follow you back. The more people you follow and retweet, the more people will see you on Twitter and take notice. They will naturally follow you back. Tweet links to your followers to give them more meaty content. You can link to your website or blog, or to a favorite news organization’s recent article on industry trends.

Ask for retweets in your tweet. It takes almost no time for people to retweet to their followers and most are willing to retweet for you. Don’t forget to add a Twitter button to your company website to help people find you on Twitter.

Add Photos and Video
Did you think you can only tweet words? Visual tweets with photos and videos get more attention in the news feed than plain text. Plus, your average text-only tweet is limited to 140 characters including the hashtags. By adding a picture or video, you get to say more visually and still have characters to spare. Keep in mind that Twitter treats links to photos and videos as up to 22 characters per tweet.

Don’t expect to become an overnight Twitter sensation. Focus on one or two areas and master them. Maybe this week you resolve to tweet, retweet and like a tweet every day. Next week you can work on finding and joining conversations.